“Indeed, seen as separate and unrelated commandments, each as an individual obligation and burden, the ancillary mitzvoth seem to be a vast and even an absurd assortment of petty details which are, if not downright intimidating, then at the least troublesome.

What we call details, however, are only part of greater units which in turn combined in various ways into a single entity.

It is as though in examining the leaves and flowers of a tree, one were to be overwhelmed by the abundance, the variety, and the complexity of detail.

But when one realizes that it is all part of the same single growth, all part of the same branching out into manifold forms of the one tree, then the details would cease to be disturbing and would be accepted as intrinsic to the wondrousness of the whole.”

                                                                                                                      –Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz                

From The Thirteen Petalled Rose, p. 113, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

The mission of the Jews?

We are priests.

As priests, we have a special mission.

There is a difference between a priest and a pastor.

A pastor is a person who has to be a teacher, a leader.

And contrary to what many people may say, I don’t think that being a light unto the nations means that we are the teachers of the world.

In any case, the world doesn’t like our teachings.

The role of the priest is, first of all, that the priest accepts a great number of special duties.

But as priests, we are, basically, a people, obsessed with God.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From Pebbles of Wisdom from Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

There are two ways of viewing the concept of "His glory filling the earth."

One can see it as children do, perhaps, as air filling all space, or as something all pervasive, like space itself.

Or else, in penetrating into the philosophical nature of the problem, we touch on a certain Kabbalistic view by which the holy letters of the Torah are not the black designations of writing, but the white space surrounding them.

It is like the drawings of certain painters (or the designs of gestalt psychologists), in which image and background change places depending on the viewer's emphasis. 

The world thus can be seen as an image against God Who is the background, or God can become the image against the background of the world.

In either case, God is not to be found in some other world; He is somehow intrinsic to this world, constituting its very existence.

Or possibly, the world manifests only the shadow of Divine existence.

Like a film projected on a screen: What we see are only the shadows cast by the light thrown against a moving series of negative pictures.

Thus, life as a whole can be justifiably called an illusion of passing shadows, which may hold us fascinated, but which has no more genuineness or reality than what we give them.

Because "only He exists," and the world is not another reality in addition to Him.

It is a shadow, or a small visible fragment of His infinity. 

God is not elsewhere, in Heaven or in some invisible spiritual realm of being.

He is here and everywhere, filling all with that Divine essence which is being.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From The Long Shorter Way, p. 221, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

Whether plea or praise, prayer is always speech addressed to God, and such speech is only possible when a person knows that "Verily God has heard me and attended to the voice of my prayer" (Psalm 66:19). 

The poem "Come My Beloved" (Lecha Dodi) by Rav Shlomo Alkavets, which, almost as soon as it was composed, was adopted as a central song in the Sab­bath liturgy, is in fact a mystic song of yearning for Jerusalem.

It blends the redemptive longings of the people of Israel and of the world, and focuses those longings on the Holy City.

When the Jews used to say "the city," they meant Jerusalem.

For this earthly city of God reflects the essence of the people as a whole.

It stands for the Shechinah in exile, and stands no less for the world in its agony and suffering.

Thus, the ravaged and abandoned city awaits redemption and fulfillment.

Its rebuilding signifies alike the renaissance of the Jewish people and the revival of Jerusalem's ancient covenant with that people and with the whole world.

Mystic Jerusalem did not blur the conception of Jerusalem as a real earthly center of habitation.

Even in the darkest days of tyranny and persecution, when no Jew might dwell there, Jerusalem was held to be the capital of the children of Israel.

As long as outer circumstances do not permit the life of the nation to be centered in Jerusalem, the institutions of Jewish religious law (halachah) cannot have their full effect.

Meanwhile, all over the world, Jews turn toward the city when they pray, and synagogues are so built that the Holy Ark faces Jerusalem.

It is also the ardent desire of the individual Jew to be in Jerusalem and to live there.

Even the dry legal code affirms that the will to live in Jerusalem overrides all other reasons given for a course of action.

Over the centuries, this was very seldom a practical possibility, but the hope never faltered.

So that, at the end of the Passover feast, with its celebration of release from bondage, the last words declaimed are: "Next year in Jerusalem."

For many generations, it was customary to write in every marriage contract: "The wedding will take place on such ­and-such a date in Jerusalem. However, if by then redemption has still not come, it will take place in . . . (another specified place)"—which is to say that the only suitable place for the couple to live was Jerusalem.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From "Remembering Jerusalem," p. 217, in The Strife of the Spirit by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

The highest level of repentance lies beyond the cor­rection of sinful deeds and the creation of independent, new patterns that counterweigh past sins and injuries.

It is reached when the change and the correction penetrate the very essence of the sins once com­mitted and, as the sages say, create the condition in which a man's transgressions become his merits. 

This level of tikun is reached when a person draws from his failings not only the ability to do good, but the power to fall again and again and, notwithstanding, to transform more extensive and important segments of life.

It is using the knowledge of the sin of the past and transforming it into such an extraordinary thirst for good that it becomes a Divine force.

The more a man was sunken in evil, the more eager he becomes for good.

This level of be­ing, in which failings no longer exert a negative influence on the peni­tent, in which they no longer reduce his stature or sap his strength but serve to raise him, to stimulate his progress—this is the condition of genuine tikkun.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From "Teshuvah" in The Strife of the Spirit by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

When Rabbi Shmuel of Nicholsberg and Rabbi Pinchas, author of Hahaflaah, came to Rabbi DovBer, the Great Maggid of Mezherich, they asked him how it is possible—as the Talmud commands—to "bless God over bad fortune just as one blesses Him over good fortune," and what is more, to do it "cheerfully."

The Maggid pointed to Rabbi Zusha of Anipoli, who was sitting in the study hall, and said, "Ask him."

They posed their question to Rabbi Zusha, a lifelong pauper, sick in body and afflicted with countless troubles, who replied, "I don't know why the Rebbe sent you to me, a person who has never had a bad day in his life!"

This same Rabbi Zusha was once reduced to such poverty as to lack bread, and when he was very hungry, he turned to God and said: "Master of the Universe! Thank you for giving me an appetite."

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From Opening the Tanya, p.283, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

Light is the Genesis-creation of the world: the primary ut­terance of creation is "Let there be light," and the first act of creation is the distillation of light, its separation from darkness.

The Midrash asks: Where was light created from?

And the answer is whispered: "God cloaked Himself in a white shawl, and the light of its splendor shone from one end of the world to the other" (Genesis Rabbah 3:4).

In other words, light, fundamentally, does not belong to this world.

It is, rather, an emanation of a different essence, from the other side of reality.

Light serves as the symbol of the good and the beauti­ful, of all that is positive.

The difference between light and darkness assumes such a general and metaphysical sig­nificance, and the advantage of light over darkness is so obvious and self-evident, that it serves as a sharp meta­phor: "Wisdom excels folly as far as light excels darkness" (Ecclesiastes 2:13).

Light as a positive symbol is so preva­lent in biblical Hebrew that redemption, truth, justice, peace, and even life itself "shine," and their revelation is expressed in terms of the revelation of light.

The symbolism of light goes even higher than that: Di­vine revelation itself is a revelation of light, the tzadikim in the Garden of Eden "bask in the light of Shekhinah," and even God Himself is "my light and my salvation" (Psalm 27:1).

Hence, too, in the language used by the kabbalists, all of reality is "lights" and "enlightenments," all the way up to "the light of the Infinite, be blessed."

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

In On Being Free, p. 181, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

My late uncle once quoted the great Rabbi of Kotsk, who said—in light of the story of Judah and Tamar—that every man must have a close friend, so close that he can reveal his heart to him and even tell him that he has had dealings with a prostitute!

Today, one can talk about such things in the street with anybody.

Today one needs a close soul-friend, to whom one can tell that one believes in God, to tell him that, despite the fact of being religious and carry­ing out the mitzvot, "I nevertheless believe in God!"

I think that part of the job of religious education is in the personal ability to throw off the philosophical, intellectual, and aca­demic baggage that has become an encumbrance rather than a staff to support us, and to say what many people think in their hearts—that God really does exist (in spite of the declarations that He exists) and that it is actually pos­sible to turn to Him.

Only in this way is it possible to speak of prayer and to educate for prayer.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From On Being Free, p. 112, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

The questions which bring most people to Faith are, in the very simplest words, "What is the meaning of all this? What is the pur­pose?"

These are questions that, basically, do not have an­swers—unless one makes the leap of faith.

Each of us asks our own question in our own way, at our own time.

Some­times, questions are asked in a moment of crisis, but of­ten, in the midst of ordinary life, a person will say to himself, "I have a busy life; I do things, I run from place to place, I live, I eat, I go through the motions, but where am I running to?

What is the meaning and purpose of all this?"

Then the search for an answer begins.

Walking through life is like wandering in a labyrinth, constantly probing and searching for the opening, the an­swer to that riddle.

It is depressing enough when we feel that we are not getting anywhere, but the deepest despair is when one knows that the labyrinth has no way out, that one will wander aimlessly from corridor to corridor until death.

We do not always think about meaning and pur­pose, but when this question does come to awareness, it becomes a haunting, gnawing pain.

We want a response to our deep existential questions, and we want a nontrivial answer.

We have trivial, temporary answers—too many of them. "I am here to make money" and "I am here to de­vour as many hamburgers as possible" may be purposes, but they are not fulfilling ones.

The very concept of purpose is essentially a religious statement, and the quest for purpose is a spiritual journey.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From Simple Words, p. 81, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

In a very general sense, it may be said that Judaism has brought into this world several ideas of great significance: 

Monotheism, directly or indirectly, wherever it is found and has influence in the world, and all that is implied by it or results from it, is derived from Judaism.

The idea of the Sabbath as a weekly day of rest also derives from Judaism.

As does the idea of the Messiah as an expectation of redemption in the time to come.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From We Jews, p. 157 by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

The basic point of prayer is saying, “I am here. Hello. I wanted to say hello.”

That is the essence of prayer.

It is like a phone call.

I make a phone call and say “Hello, I am here.”

Now sometimes I say something more: “Please, I need a helping hand.”

Sometimes I say, “Look. I’m really at a tough point.”

Or sometimes I say, “I wish you would share the view with me.”

Well, this is prayer.

This is the basis of prayer.

All the rest is just how to put it into words.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From We Jews, p. 123, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

Money, by its very definition, is never an end.

It is a way of exchanging, of acquiring things.

When it becomes an obsession, when it becomes an end in itself, that obsession is a slightly pathological situation.

This is true about anything.

Chewing is a way of eating.

When a person begins to chew before he eats, it is a sign of an illness.

Washing your hands is very important to cleanliness.

When you see a person washing his hands sixty times a day, it is a sign of compulsiveness.

Money is a way of transforming assets into other things, whatever they are.

If it becomes a purpose in itself, that is defined psychologically as a perversion.

This is exactly the definition of a perversion: in perversion, you have something that is auxiliary but that becomes a purpose in itself. 

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From We Jews, p. 92, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

No single individual can actually observe all 613 mitzvot, not only because conditions might not allow it, but because there is no individ­ual to whom they all apply.

Some mitzvot are commanded exclusively to women, others exclusively to men.

Some apply only to the king or the kohen gadol ("high priest"), whereas other people are actually for­bidden to observe them.

But every Jew has some connection with each of the mitzvot, and, in a certain sense, can observe them all.

For exam­ple, the high priest or the king fulfills his mitzvot on his own behalf and on behalf of all Israel.

All of Israel in a par­ticular generation, and in a broader sense of all generations, constitutes a 'komah sheleimah,' a singular unit, just as the human body, consisting of different limbs and organs, constitutes a single organism.

Israel, in this sense, is a multidimensional being, in time as well as space, its var­ious generations and communities composing an integrated whole.

Each generation is a cross section of the greater body, personifying the totality in its specific way.

Each individual, therefore, as a part of the whole, shares in the mitzvot that every other part observes.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

From Opening the Tanya, p. 124, by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz